Social Influence and Perceptual Decision Making
Final Report Abstract
How does social consensus shape our perception? In everyday life, we often rely on what others think or do – whether it’s political opinions, product reviews, or interpreting ambiguous situations. But can the consensus of others actually change how we perceive the world? This was the central question of our research project: Does social consensus alter perceptual decision-making – and through which mechanisms? To address this question, we developed a novel theoretical model – the extended social reinforcement learning account. The model suggests that repeated exposure to a social consensus can lead to learning processes that change how we prioritize and process sensory information. Across a series of behavioral and neuroscientific studies, we tested this idea in controlled experiments. Our findings clearly show that social consensus influences perception. People are more likely to perceive stimuli in line with a previously learned consensus. These effects are not only visible in behavior but also measurable in neural activity and visual attention patterns – and they often persist even after social input is removed. Interestingly, the effect is stronger when the consensus comes from groups we identify with. In contrast, objective feedback can suppress these consensus effects entirely. These insights help us better understand how social environments shape individual cognition and perception, even in seemingly simple tasks. Beyond advancing basic science, this research has practical implications for areas such as health communication, combating misinformation, and designing social features in digital platforms.
Publications
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Social norm learning from non-human agents can induce a persistent perceptual bias: A diffusion model approach. Acta Psychologica, 229, 103691.
Duderstadt, Vinzenz H.; Mojzisch, Andreas & Germar, Markus
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Broadening the Scope and Dropping Dead Weight: Toward a Better Understanding of the Full Life Cycle of Norms. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 19(1), 57-59.
Germar, Markus & Mojzisch, Andreas
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Social norm learning alters feature-based visual attention: Evidence from steady-state visual evoked potentials.. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 49(11), 1460-1466.
Germar, Markus; Albrecht, Thorsten & Mojzisch, Andreas
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Social norms shape visual appearance: Taking a closer look at the link between social norm learning and perceptual decision-making. Cognition, 241, 105611.
Germar, Markus; Duderstadt, Vinzenz H. & Mojzisch, Andreas
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Social influence and social identity: A diffusion model analysis. British Journal of Social Psychology, 63(3), 1137-1155.
Duderstadt, Vinzenz H.; Mojzisch, Andreas & Germar, Markus
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The neurocognitive underpinnings of social influence. Research Handbook on Social Influence, 25-40. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Germar, Markus
